Wednesday, May 28, 2008

T-Ball Practice

Emma had her first t-ball practice last night ... well, she was there anyway. I can't help but wonder what in the world have we signed up for! A friend of ours from church is the coach and her daughter is playing as well. Emma and her little friend Isabelle are playground rugrats while their big brothers are playing baseball and they have all kinds of fun together - so of course that carried over to the t-ball field. Where in the world is my camera when I need it! They were over by 3rd base and they stood no more than 1 inch away from each other ... they giggled and they visited and they put their gloves over their faces ... and giggled some more ... and placed their gloves on top of their heads like hats ... and giggled some more. Did they pay attention to the actual practice? Mmmm, not exactly. They did get excited when they got to run the bases though!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Tragic Accident

One of the first things I read yesterday morning was the heartbreaking story of the death of Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest daughter - Maria. I couldn't get this story out of my mind for the rest of the day. Our hearts and prayers go out to this wonderful family and especially for their son. We pray the Lord sees them through this time and that their hearts be healed from the tragedy. This story touched me not so much because of their adopted daughters but from the aspect of having older children driving and also from the aspect of all of us being guilty of not really paying as close attention as we should.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=4907419

The impact their family has had on international adoption is amazing. Not only do they talk about their belief in caring for the orphans of the world but they "walk" what they "talk". They have also set up a foundation to help families with some of the costs of adoption as well as partnering with churches to setup adoption funds within the church body.

This morning I ran across the story of a song he had written for his daughters - not only will the song bring tears to your eyes, but the story behind it. We could all take heed to his words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLYxtuC0oRk

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Ryan Is On the Front Page of the local Newspaper!

Our Sunday School class teamed up with another class and spent this last Saturday cleaning up "Wyatt's Woods" by the school Ryan's picture made it in the paper! I particularly enjoyed having the kids work along side of us and getting to have some quality time too.

http://www.sentinelnews.com/cgi-bin/storyviewnew.cgi?019+News.2008521-421-019-019007.Full+News/

We really had a fun time even though I was just a tad on the sore side for a few days. I suppose that comes with age and from sitting behind a computer all day. Sigh.

Emma used some of her Christmas & birthday money to buy a new rake and shovel for the occassion, although she did whine just a tad when some mud got on the shovel. It took a while to convince her that was the idea!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

"Muffins With Mom"


A few weeks ago the daycare had a little get together for Mother's Day - "Muffins With Mom". I had the pleasure of being able to go down and have a few muffins with my little muffin. She was most delighted to be able to spend some of her play time with her mama!

It's so nice having her in the same building where I work and while I do not get to go down and see her every day, it's nice knowing the availability is there. What a blessing!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

3 Year Anniversary of Emma's Gotcha Day!


Emma Gotcha Day



Wow, it's hard to believe it's already been 3 years since Emma was placed in our arms. What a blessed and wonderful day that was!!!

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Spring Time and Flip Flops

I've been meaning to blog about this, but wasn't sure if it was appropriate or not ... a month or so ago, Emma had really been on my case about wanting to wear flip flops to daycare. I kept putting her off telling her it was too cold (which it was - but the child would wear them year 'round if I would let her) and that as soon as it warmed up she was more than welcome to wear them.

One morning she was particularly persistant but I held out. Right after she got settled into her car seat and I was trying to buckle her in, she leaned her head out the door and yelled (really loud I might add) "JESUS AND GOD. WHEN IS SPRING GOING TO BE HERE?!"

What gets into their little noggins? I'm thinking we need to start in on the reverent aspects of Christiantiy!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Amy's The Best




You know how you cross paths with people in the comings and goings of your life, and how sometimes there are those you just instantly click with, like, admire - all those good things? Well, that sums up how I feel about Amy. She was Emma's first daycare teacher when the daycare at my work opened up. We had only been home with Emma for a few months at the time. And not only did I instantly like Amy, Emma did too and the feelings were obviously mutual from Amy toward Emma. So started what I hope to be a long, long friendship!

Amy has since moved on to another job but she still comes to the daycare at least once a week to see Emma and on most days takes her out running around. Sometimes it's the library, sometimes to the mall - just anywhere to go spend some special one on one time. Not too long ago she took Emma to "Build-A-Bear" for her birthday outing! Emma had been asking and asking to go there even going so far as to tell me she just wanted to go in "for a minute". She and Emma made "Sally" (that's another story to tell) and now Sally is Emma's best buddy. Last week Amy took her with her to have her nails done and while she was there she had Emma's painted too - bright, bright pink with sparkles! Emma loves the extra attention and was more than pleased with her "Fancy Nancy Nails"!

All that to say, everyone needs an Amy in their life. It's even more special to us given the fact that all of our family lives at least 12 hours away.

Amy graduated from college this past weekend & wanted her parents to meet Emma while they were in town for her big day. So, we finally got a chance to meet the "honorary grandparents" and after meeting them I realized why Amy is such a sweet and special young lady. They were just as sweet as Amy! Apparently they have heard all kinds of Emma stories and love her without knowing her. They even brought gifts for the little munchkin as well as the cutest little homemade cookies with her name on them. It tickles us to no end how much our little one is loved.

And to end this post, I took Emma shopping to buy a graduation present and of all places to go, she wanted to go buy a monkey at Build-A-Bear! Amy loves monkeys and I think was most touched by Emma's gift!

Friday, May 9, 2008

Who We Love



We took a different route last night when we left gymnastics and drove by the "mega church" in our area. As we were going past it, Emma asked what was on the roof of that big building then she said "Oh, it's a cross", then the conversation continued with:

Jesus died on a cross.
Jesus loves us.
I love Jesus. And God. SO MUCH!

What a sweet baby girl ... sometimes she just brings tears to my eyes. The bible talks about us needing to have the faith of a child and it hit me last night that is exactly what it's talking about. She can't possibly be old enough to understand but boy, she believes and it makes my heart smile when she tells us about it!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Shoes - Or Lack Thereof

Ever since we have had Emma we have had issues with her not wanting to wear shoes. We don't know for sure what she wore in the orphanage but in the few pictures we do have she is wearing socks. Even when we were in China though, you could put on shoes and socks and before you could turn around they would be off again. Once we were home with her she would take them off any time we got in the car and the second we walked in the house. There's just something about her that doesn't like having her little foot confined.

We hadn't been home long at all until she fell head over heals in love with flip flops! All the little girls at church would let her try on their flip flops and once her foot grew enough to find some to fit we started buying them for her. Needless to say, baby girl still LOVES flip flops!

Here's a pair she got for her birthday and they quickly became her favorite pair!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Queen For The Day


Emma also had a little 'mini-birthday party' in the daycare with all of her little school friends. We didn't do a big thing, just cookies and some of those blow things. I had taken her out for lunch that day & also took her to the store to let her pick out the treats when she added that she wanted a party hat. Of course I couldn't find any at the store so we stopped by the dollar store on the way back to work & they happened to have a dollar CROWN! Just what every little Queen needs!

Monday, May 5, 2008

On A Happier Note


My mom bought this dress for Emma for her birthday ... baby girl is Stylin'! She's looking so grown up!

Slow Boat To China

Referrals came out on Friday and some more agencies are expecting packages today. I read this a.m. that the cutoff date for this batch was 1/12/06 which means they only covered 3 log-in-days since the batch in April. At this rate, we'll be 90 before we adopt again ...

There are now 174 log-in-dates to cover to get to ours (which is 7/6/06). At 3 days per month, that means we would only have 58 more months to go.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

4 Year Checkup





Miss Emma had her 4 year old checkup on Thursday ... she's grown 1 1/2" since last year! She's now a whopping 37 1/2 inches tall. I'm pretty sure her weight is the same as last year but I haven't looked back to see for sure yet. She was quite the little trooper at the appointment even though she had immunizations. Both the doctor and the nurse were in full "ahhhhh" mode when she had her shots because they gave her two suckers since she had to have so many. In between crying and holding on tight to both suckers, she wouldn't have one until Ryan had one too. She insisted he take one of the two she had. What a sweet baby girl ..